Mommy and Me Time On The Bike

Silas and I have been spending our days hanging around town these last few weeks.  The Land Rover is still in the shop.  It's been in there for one month but should be coming home this week some time and I couldn't be more pleased!  Colin takes the dirt bike to the village and Silas and I ride around town on my bike.  It is such a blessing to have a bike that I can use daily and I am so thankful for it.  

I went to one of the little shops just outside our gate and bought a green plastic chair so Silas could sit "safely" while we ride around.  I would have carried him on my back but haven't found a good  carrier for him.

So the green chair was the answer.  I had to have Colin cut the front legs off the chair because my flip flops were getting caught when I would peddle.  

I do make Si wear his "seat belt" when we go.  It consist of me taking one of Colin's belts and tightening it up around his belly and around the back of the chair.  This also helps to keep him from slipping down in the seat.

We have a good time when we ride.  I try and go in the mornings so the heat isn't too bad.  Thats more for me than for Silas.  I usually arrive to wherever we are going out of breath and pouring sweat!  I have a tendency to try and ride everywhere I go as fast as I can.  It makes for a sweaty hot mess when we stop.  Silas LOVES riding the bike with me.  He sings to me most days.  And he likes to point out the things he knows the words for.  I hear "You see 'em!  MOM, you see 'em!?" a lot.  And his favorite song "Happy happy happy happy happy happy, AMEN!"  By the time we get all our running around done,  I am loaded down with fruit and veggies from market, and we head home.  We usually make a trip to town 4 times a week.  Given the limited space I have for groceries I have to make more trips.  It has reduced our food budget for this month, and we are saving a ton on fuel!  Not to mention, my legs are getting into great shape!  Win win all around.   

I will be glad when the Land Rover is back, but I think we will continue to ride a few times a week just because.  I love the time I get to spend with Silas and this is just a cool thing that he and I get to do.        

And in other news...It hasn't been all bike riding for me.  I have been teaching Children's Church every Sunday and LOVE it.  I think there is about 50 to 60 kids each week.  We have started at the beginning of the Bible and will work our way through 75 stories of the Bible.  This past Sunday the Children did a small drama for the church.  I made signs for them to hold and we read through the story of creation.  It was fun and simple and just one more way that they got to hear the story and hopefully remember it!  
A friend and I are also teaching cooking classes each month at our church.  Last week we taught them how to prepare potato patties.  We used all ingredients that the ladies can get in the village.  From what we can tell, the ladies loved it and they have asked that we do it again this week.  So on Wednesday of this week we are going to go out again and cook.  This time however, the ladies that learned last week will teach the newcomers!  Should be a fun day!  I love my friends out in Obule.  They are so wonderful and I am just so excited to be a part of their lives.  I hear people say that we are a blessing to them, but I feel like we are the ones being blessed.  God has truly given us beautiful people to share our lives with here. 

God continues to bless us with more wells

Today I sat down and added up how many successful wells Water For All International and Global Care have been able to drill in Uganda.  The best I can figure, God has blessed us with 26 wells so far.  We are hoping to add 2 more wells next week.  We recognize that it is only by God's grace that we are living and working in Uganda.  It is only by God's grace that we have such a wonderful home church and an amazing group of young men that are willing to donate days and days of hard work per each well.  I don't think we've been able to drill a well in less than 4 days time yet, and some wells have even taken up to 2 weeks to complete.  That is a lot of time and hard work these guys freely give just to love and serve their communities.  We also recognize that the strength needed to drill through the tough marrum rock that covers everything here comes from God, the knowledge required to develop this simple technology comes from God, these wonderful smiling appreciative families were created by God and for God, it is God who puts the water deep down in the ground, it is God who made a way for us to be here, and it is God who invites us to join Him in His work.

I was told by these ladies that this well is serving hundreds of families over an area several square kilometers in size.

This family is already using their family well for all their household use, watering animals, and watering the father's orange and mango seedlings that he sells as a business.

 

the village workshop

For the last couple of weeks Dan, Emma, and I have been working in the shop fabricating drill bits (called rockets here), new heavy-duty pumps that will stand up to the community wide use our wells are seeing, and other odds and ends.  Neither Dan nor Emma knew how to weld a few weeks ago, but both have been willing to try and are picking it up quickly.  The workshop is equipped with just about everything you could want to do welding, cutting, and grinding work.  We are so blessed to have a place in the village where we are drilling where we can do this type of fabrication work, where our guys can learn new skills, we can store our drilling rig and materials, and where we can enjoy our beans and posho at lunch time.  

WATER

When you read the water statistics from around the world it is startling how many people are still in dire need of water, how many people lack access to clean drinking water, how many people are still dying from water-related illnesses, how far the average person walks to fetch water for their home, how many days of work and school are lost due to water-related issues, and how many areas of the developing world are still without water.  Thank you for supporting efforts to bring safe, clean drinking water to the people of Uganda.  God is good!    

 Nearly a billion, 884 million people do not have access to clean and safe water. 37% of those people live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. "Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water 2010." Available at www.wssinfo.org/

 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases.
United Nations Development Programme. "Human Development Report 2006: Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis." 2006. Available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/

Half of the world's hospital beds are filled with people suffering from a water-related disease.
United Nations Development Programme. "Human Development Report 2006: Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis." 2006. Available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/

 The average container for water collection in Africa, the jerry can weighs over 40 lbs when full. 

 Almost two-thirds, 64% of households rely on women to get the family's water when there is no water source in the home.
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. "Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water 2010." Available at 
www.wssinfo.org/

 1 in 8 people world wide do not have access to safe and clean drinking water.
Based on 87% of the global population using imprtoved sources. Found in WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. "Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water 2010." Available atwww.wssinfo.org/

 Nearly 1 out of every 5 deaths under the age of 5 worldwide is due to a water-related disease.
WHO/UNICEF. "Diarrhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done." 2009. available at http://www.unicef.org/health/index_51412.html.

For Colin

I wanted to post this for Colin.  He has a "little chap" that follows him and he is setting such a wonderful example for him.  Silas and I are so blessed to have him in our lives and we love him with all our hearts.  

"The Little Chap Who Follows Me!" 

A careful man I want to be;
A little fellow follows me.
I do not dare to go astray
For fear he'll go the self same way.

I cannot once escape his eyes,
Whate'er he sees me do, he tries.
Like me he says he's going to be;
The little chap who follows me.

He thinks that I'm so very fine,
Believes in every word of mine.
The base in me he must not see;
The little chap who follows me.

I must remember as I go
Through summer's sun and winter's snow,
I'm building for the years to be;
The little chap who follows me.

Author: Unknown

my friend Sterling

I want to tell you about a wonderful man and friend.  His name is Sterling Hall.  I first met Sterling when I was living at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station located about 30 miles south of Sonora, TX.  I was involved in prescribed burning and was trying to get certified to conduct prescribed burns throughout the state of Texas.  Sterling was in his early teens at the time - probably around junior high age.  He came up to me at a field day at the Station and wanted to know more about prescribed burning and see if he could come and help out on any upcoming burns.  About a week later we had a burn scheduled and so I let Sterling know and he came out on the day of the burn.  If I remember correctly it was not one of my better burns, I had not planned it as well as I should have, and we had a number of small spot-fires that got over into the neighboring pasture.  It was a lively day, but Sterling worked just like anyone and acted like he was an old pro at burning.  So that is how I met Sterling and where our relationship began.  Over the next few years we spent much more time together, Sterling helped out on a number of burns, I was able to help him on a science project, we spent time at his home with his family, he interned on a neighboring ranch for a summer, and we did a lot of riding around on the Polaris Ranger on a lot of different ranches.  I married Ronnie and she and Sterling hit it off and became fast friends.

Sterling always showed a lot of maturity.  Even when he was in junior high he didn't act like a typical junior high kid to me, he acted like a man.  Sterling was always very active and involved in organizations, clubs, service projects etc.  I never really got involved in much during my high school years so I really respected Sterling for having that desire to serve and be involved in bettering your community.  Sterling was always polite, was respectful, exhibited good wholesome values, showed an eagerness to learn, was excellent company to be around, and is just plain likeable.  He came from a good Christian home and had a wonderful close-knit family.  It was always super easy to like Sterling and be his friend.  One of the highlights of being Sterling's friend was when we were able to see him receive his Eagle's Scout badge during his senior year of high school.

One day a few months ago we received in the mail a package from Sterling and in it was some diapers and some stuff from Ronnie, some books and things for Silas, some treats we can't get here, and the best thing of all was a book written by Sterling himself.  The book was titled In My Perspective.  I had no idea Sterling had written a book and when I opened it up to read it I was even more surprised to see that his book was dedicated to his family and to me and Ronnie.  Then you turn the page to find that the book is about the friendship Sterling and I shared.  It was truly one of the most touching and moving things I've ever received.  I had no idea years ago when I first met Sterling that our friendship would be as impactful as it was.  As I read the book I was incredibly humbled.  You never know how your life affects others.  It made me more mindful of the impact we have on others around us, and how what we do and say when our guard is down influences others.  Sterling was very flattering in his book and I am not sure I can live up to the Colin he writes about.  Sterling went on to talk about how he was inspired by our coming to Uganda and as a result has a greater desire serve others and to serve his country.  He also says he learned from our friendship how to be obedient to all God calls him to do.  I was blown away by Sterling's words.  Sterling told his account from his perspective, but his words put a few things in perspective for me.  For one, each of us at this very moment is influencing others.  Folks are watching us to see how we handle certain situations, how we treat others, how we react and interact.  We have the power to influence others for good or bad at any given moment.  I never really gave it much thought before as to how I might be influencing Sterling - I was just having fun with a friend, but as I can see from Sterling's book, Sterling was watching and observing how I treated Ronnie, how I handled tough situations, if I really lived a Christ-like life or if it was all talk, was my faith real and did I have a heart changed by the power of God, was there joy in my life, did I value our friendship, how was I really.

Ronnie and I were both incredibly moved by Sterling's account of our friendship.  It was sad in a way to read about all those good times with good folks and to not be able to share those same moments anymore.  But it was also an opportunity to rejoice because God allowed us to have that time, to do all those fun things, to talk about things that matter, to get to know one another and to share our lives with each other.  I am grateful God blessed us with Sterling.  His friendship was and still is a blessing.  I greatly respect and admire Sterling for the man he has become.  His parents have done a fantastic job of raising Sterling to be a man of integrity.  It is an honor to receive such a touching book and an honor to be friends with Sterling.  Sterling - please know that we love you and pray God's blessing on you and all your endeavours as you are obedient to each and everything He calls you to.

we are busy drilling new wells

I thought it was about time for an update on the water well drilling.  In the last month we were able to successfully drill 4 new wells - 1 in Pingire and 3 in Obulle.  We are so excited about what the future holds for this ministry.  We have been drilling now in Uganda for about a year and a half now and we are only just now figuring out how best to drill in this environment with this equipment, and through these formations.  We are still learning and tweaking things to fit our situation.  God has been faithful and has certainly kept us as we've gone through this learning period.  He has kept our equipment from breaking, our morale, our strength, our crew, etc.  We are so excited for the dream of owning your own well to catch on in Obulle and Pingire.  With each "test well" we drill the village begins to see that dream take shape in their minds, and one day they too will only have to travel a few feet for water as opposed to kilometers.  

We will start a new well in Pingire on Monday.  The drilling has been going so well that we haven't taken the time to stop and get good pictures of the completed product, but I hope to do that next week sometime so that you can see the happy families who are praising God for the gift of water He has given them.  This last well that we completed was one of the most difficult wells we've faced.  It took 3 days to drill the first 1 meter.  We hit a hard marrum rock almost immediately and then just had to beat on it for the next 4 days before we got past it.  All in all it took 2 weeks of difficult drilling to get down into good water so we could case the well.  Yesterday we were rewarded for our efforts as we watched the family pumping water from their very own well.  

Thank you for your prayers and support.  We covet your prayers and without you Water For All International could not continue serving the rural poor, we would not be living this dream life that we get to live, and many would go without water.  So thank you for lifting us up in prayer and for doing your part and being obedient to God's calling on your life.